The Phoenix - Tiger 131 #12

[Robert E Morey]

Looking great Adrian. I'll say - those blasted and refinished parts look almost better than new. This tank will look great once again.

Amazing how they can be salvaged. You guys doing these rebuilds are to be commended.
Best regards,
Bob

[Adrian Harris]

Your new media blasting setup is doing a great job.

I'm very happy with it.

The cabinet has a hopper at the bottom, and I've been trying different amounts of media, from full to nearly empty, and it seems to work best with not too much media. I do have to keep blowing around the cabinet to get it out of the corners but I seem to get more done without having to clean the gun when running with less media.

Adrian.

[Chris Hoole]

Hi Adrian,

has the previous owner asked you to repair this or have you taken it on yourself? Is it economical to repair it? It reminds me I must get mine insured - do most people just add theirs to the household insurance or is there a specialist insurer people use?

[Steen Vøler]

My Tiger is added to the household insurance

[Adrian Harris]

has the previous owner asked you to repair this or have you taken it on yourself? Is it economical to repair it?

I've taken it on myself.

I hope it will be economical, but once you start adding up all the little bits etc, that's when the costs start to mount.

I've just spent £150 on replacement bearings for the drive wheels, sprockets and road wheels.

I think the single biggest cost is going to be replacing the tracks. I think I've counted 70 salvageable ones, which saves quite a chunk, but I'm worried I may find that they just fall apart under load.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

I have an interesting choice to make.

The replacement hull floor I picked up from Armortek at the Open Day doesn't have the holes in the base for fitting the grub screws which assist in holding the fixed ends of the torsion bars in place.

The suspension bars are drilled all the way through at these positions, so I could attach the bars to the floor, drill pilot holes using the suspension bar as a guide, then open them out to the right size for fitting the grub screws.

But.

I do think having these fasteners underneath the tank will be a pain, not only if they need tightening once the tank is built, but also because they will be exposed to all the muck and mud over which the tank passes.

So instead, I could open up the pilot holes in the suspension bars and tap the other side, then use cap head bolts to assist with the retention of the fixed ends. That would leave the hull floor with a lot less holes in it.

I think I'll go a make a cup of tea and mull it over...

Adrian.

[Vince Cutajar]

That's one of the changes I did on mine.

Vince

[Adrian Harris]

Thanks Vince. Handy to see the inside like that. I'm pretty much decided on doing the same, and leaving the hull floor as un-perforated as possible.

I will be countersinking the front, rear and underside fixings, to make it as smooth as possible.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

My water trap and regulator arrived for the blasting cabinet this week, so I've been back blasting things in the cold windy weather. I've done another twenty track links and there's no sign of the nozzle gunging up as before, so it looks like the trap is working.

These are the armoured covers for the exhausts:

And the steel heat shields:

I did wonder about the apparent absurdity of removing the World's most realistic heat damage from these , but I think I'd rather they were cleaned and protected, even if I end up painting rusty pigments on them.

Adrian.

[Vince Cutajar]

Adrian

This is how the bottom will look:

Vince

[Adrian Harris]

Very nice Vince.

Did you make a rebate for the welds down each side ?

I'm thinking I need to make various bevels on the lower hull plates in order for the weld material to have something to stick to.

Adrian.

[Vince Cutajar]

In an ideal world I should have made a rebate but I did not bother to do it. That was my first ever attempt at simulating weld seams with milliput and was more interested with how that would turn out.

Vince

[Robert Reid]

This is the second really cool restoration thread!

You know that your passion (or product) is iconic... when people start restoring examples of it!

Thanks for posting these pix. It reinforces the fact that our Armortek kits aren't 'disposable' but are built for the ages. And if one gets worn out, burned out or damaged... it's worthy of restoration.

Tell me another model kit that rates that kind of reverence?

Cheers,

RPR

[Adrian Harris]

At the risk of opening yet another colour match can of worms it looks to me from this video:



that the inside of the upper hull in Tiger 131 has been painted Elfenbein, but the lower hull area appears to have been painted PanzerGrau, rather than Grüngrau.

Adrian.

[Brian Ostlind]

That’s a funny video I loved the description of the starting and warm up. I would LOVE to start that Maybach v12 and Go for a spin. I like the pink color interior.